Smooth

I was standing in line at the drug store last week and Smooth by Santana came on over the muzak system.  Those little guitar riffs were stuck in my head all week.  I'm a guitar player so I probably hear that song a little differently.  Santana is a bad dude.  Very smooth.  Santana and I both play PRS guitars. Coincidence? Yeah, probably....

Guess I need to figure out how to post 

music clips without stupid YouTube ads.

With no races planned for two weekends it was a good time for a rest week. I generally do exactly what my coach tells me. The only exception being rest weeks when I'm supposed to take it easy but end up on a fun ride that turns into a knife fight. Knife fights are not easy. I made it all the way to Sunday before screwing up my training plan this week.

On Saturday I missed a mountain bike ride that Brian K posted up for Elk Neck. It would have been fun, but it would not have been easy. I rode my cross bike from home up to the C&D canal and over to Lums Pond.  I didn't realize trails were closed but I was happy to get in a mile on the trails before I encountered the ACTIVE HUNTING TRAIL CLOSED sign.  On the return trip I went bushwhacking on some of the old fire roads that run parallel and above the newly paved Mike Castle Trail along the canal. There's an old railroad lift bridge that still operates.  It's the only way trains get into "slower" Delaware.  I've always thought it was a pretty cool engineering feat and one of these days I'd like to catch it in operation and watch a train make the crossing.

Oh, was there a sign?

C&D Lift Bridge. Yeah I know Lux, my hoods are too high.
And yes, a bottle cage...

On Sunday I still had the jones for a mountain bike ride so I met some guys for a White Clay/Middle Run ride.  The mountain bike felt heavy - I was not riding smooth.  I hadn’t ridden it since my last mountain bike race in August.  Middle Run and White Clay trails have some great flow.  So smooth. Ryan Stahnke had the lead and he laid down a blistering pace for the whole 26 miles.  I refused to budge off his wheel.  It hurt.  A lot.  And it was not easy.  So much for the training plan.  But man it was a fun ride.  Sometimes when I’m pushing way into the red on a trail ride I forget what part of the trail we are on.  I mean, I still recognize the trail and know the best line for the next turn...but I’ve momentarily forgotten just where the hell we are exactly.  That happened once yesterday.

Ryan crushing my soul. This dude is riding pretty smooth
these days. Hey, you try to get a better picture at warp speed.

When I got home I watched the World Cup cross race that had aired earlier that morning from Belgium.  When I see these European races I kind of wish our races were tough and wet and sandy and muddy.  Then I think, screw that…that would take a lot of time to clean and cost a lot of money in damaged parts.  I haven’t watched many World Cup races but this race, to me, was the best I've seen so far.  I was pulling for Sven.  The “old” guy.  The master.  Sven slowly, calmly came from about fifteen deep up to the front.  Yes, you have to have world class power and endurance to pull that off - to ride up to the front like that.  But it’s how he did it that was so fun to watch.  The guy is really smooth.  Sven and I both ride Trek Boone cross bikes.  Coincidence?  Yeah, probably...

Sven Nys. Smooth.  Dirty, but smooth.

I had always imagined the song was named Smooth because the guitar work was so smooth.  Nope.  Someone else wrote the music and Rob Thomas wrote the words and named the track Smooth after stripping out the original writer’s words and title.  Then he handed the song over to Santana to perform.  The song had been playing in my head all week - time to take it for a spin.  Like my mountain bikes, my guitars had been sitting untouched for a long time.  Months.  A year?  Maybe.  I rounded up my gear, plugged in and dialed up a nice vintage half stack kind of sound.  I was clumsy.  I’d forgotten how to ride smooth...but I hadn’t forgotten how to ride.  I sat there for almost an hour working it out.  Getting smoother.  Just that little intro lick.  Fifteen seconds worth.  Over and over.  It took a lot of work but it was really fun when I started to get it down.  When you hear it played it sounds pretty simple – it should be easy.  But it’s how it’s played… Santana plays it so smooth.